Chapter 156: Evil Jade

From Tu Mu's memory fragments, I gathered some information that instantly filled me with rage, and I shattered his dazed and foolish spirit with a single palm strike.

"What an absolute freak," I thought, my anger surging.

As it turned out, Tu Mu's biological father was a total deviant. He had kidnapped a woman and imprisoned her in a secret chamber. After becoming pregnant, she gave birth to a son, who was Tu Mu.

Later, when his biological father grew tired of her, he kidnapped a few more women.

Tu Mu grew up in such an environment until one day, seeing that Tu Mu's biological mother had grown old and lost her looks, his father grew disgusted and murdered her on the spot, burying her beneath the floor of the secret chamber.

When Tu Mu was sixteen years old, he used an iron rod he had broken off from a small iron bed to ambush his father from behind when he wasn't paying attention, killing him before escaping.

Later on, he drifted to a small mountain village named Rice Flower Village at the foot of the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range. There, he met a young girl named Xiangxiang. Seeing how pitiful he was, the girl took him home, gave him a hearty meal, and allowed him to stay.

Who would have thought that Tu Mu, having grown up in such a distorted environment, had a mind that was already thoroughly warped? He fell madly in love with this young girl named Xiangxiang.

The memories broke off here. What followed was his betrayal of kindness: he used a dark red jade stone to extract the three souls and seven physical essences of the girl's entire family, turning them into corpses. However, the young girl named Xiangxiang had not truly died; as long as the dark red jade stone was placed back into her mouth, her soul would return and she would be resurrected.

The cost was that this dark red jade stone needed to continuously absorb human souls to nourish itself, otherwise, it could not be maintained.

"What a malevolent and bizarre object," I thought in shock, staring at the dark red jade stone in my hand. I had always assumed this thing could only absorb human souls, never imagining it possessed such an unbelievable function.

I walked over to the female corpse and placed the dark red jade stone into her open mouth.

Immediately, wisps of black qi surged from her facial orifices and re-entered her body, and her physical form instantly began to transform.

I narrowed my eyes and stared at the young girl.

After a moment, the terrifying female corpse transformed into an exquisite young girl.

The girl opened her eyes, her beautiful eyes flashing with intense resentment. However, when she saw a strange face before her instead of Tu Mu—whose skining, sinew-pulling, and bone-grinding would never be enough to appease the hatred in her heart—she couldn't help but freeze in surprise.

Oh, she really came back to life! But why isn't she moving?

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than the exquisite young girl sat straight up, with the dark red jade stone still in her mouth. She looked around, gazing at the terrifying corpses surrounding her, as two trails of bloody tears slid down her face, and monstrous resentment surged from her body.

"She's alive, indeed, but her soul has already mutated from absorbing the souls of others. If this continues, the situation might not end well," I thought to myself.

With overwhelming resentment, the girl got out of the vehicle. When she saw Tu Mu's corpse, she froze for a moment, and the resentment around her dissipated by a large margin.

"Can you tell me what all of this is about?" I asked.

The girl got up, found some paper and a pen in the vehicle, and began to write.

She wrote for more than a dozen pages, then put down the pen, walked straight into the back of the vehicle, lay down in the center of the dozen or so corpses, and a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth.

Suddenly, she reached out her finger and pressed the center of her collarbone, whereupon a flash of spiritual light shattered.

Immediately afterward, she flicked her tongue and spat out the dark red jade stone from her mouth, instantly reverting back into a corpse.

I sighed inwardly, raised a hand, and the dark red jade stone was drawn into my grasp. Then, I picked up the pages she had written and began to read.

"Evil Spirit Jade," I murmured to myself, and continued reading.

It turned out that Rice Flower Village was located at the foot of the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range. Everyone in the village shared the surname Wu; far from the metropolis, they maintained simple folk customs, farming during busy seasons and hunting during the lull.

However, the villagers were all aware of the bizarre legends that had long circulated about the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range. Obeying the ancestral teachings, they only hunted on the outskirts and never dared to venture deep into the mountains.

Wu Xiangxiang's family held immense prestige in Rice Flower Village because their ancestors had been Feng Shui practitioners.

Roughly ten years ago, a dying man ran out from the depths of the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range and collapsed right at the doorstep of Wu Xiangxiang's home.

Wu Xiangxiang's grandfather saved him, only to learn that the man was actually a grave robber. His syndicate had planned a major heist, scoffing at the curses of the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range, and had gathered hundreds of people to march majestically into the mountains, where they found a grand tomb and discovered countless treasures.

Yet, apart from this single man, everyone else died one after another, and only he had pushed himself to the limit to escape the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range.

The man didn't live for many more days. Before dying, he handed this dark red jade stone to Wu Xiangxiang's grandfather, along with a piece of animal hide inscribed with ancient scripts. According to the translation by Wu Xiangxiang's grandfather, this dark red jade stone was called the Evil Spirit Jade; it could extract and preserve a person's complete soul and vital essence, but required a continuous supply of souls to sustain it.

The animal hide described that this Evil Spirit Jade had originally captured the soul of an emperor who desired eternal life, in the hope that one day his descendants could resurrect him.

Clearly, since the complete soul inside this Evil Spirit Jade had been replaced by Wu Xiangxiang's, the original imperial soul must have dissipated long ago.

"An imperial tomb!" I said to myself. There must be plenty of good treasures inside.

On the paper, Wu Xiangxiang begged me to destroy her soul within the Evil Spirit Jade so that she could find release, and she attached the method for operating the Evil Spirit Jade to the notes.

She also begged me to cremate and bury the corpses of her family.

After reading it, I let out a soft sigh.

Immediately afterward, following her instructions, I destroyed Wu Xiangxiang's soul within the Evil Spirit Jade. From then on, she would never wake up again.

"So be it. In truth, such immortality is not true immortality at all; it merely imprisons both soul and flesh. In reality, both soul and flesh have long since decayed, eventually turning into nothing more than walking corpses stripped of even consciousness," I muttered to myself.

Thus, there is no such thing as true immortality in this world.

Originally, I had planned to take a look at the netherworld rift in the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range, but now it seemed my plans would need a slight adjustment.

With a flick of fire, I reduced Wu Xiangxiang and her family's corpses to ashes, then buried them directly on a small hill. There was no headstone; let them rest in peace here.

...

The Crouching Dragon Mountain Range had always been hailed as an imperial dragon vein. Since ancient times, more than a dozen imperial tombs had been built here, but they were all located on the outskirts, and I had never heard of any emperor's tomb being built deep within the Crouching Dragon Mountain Range.

The sky grew dark. I sat beneath a large tree, lit a campfire, pulled a roasted duck out of my box, tore off half to toss to the sable, and began gnawing on the other half myself.

After quickly filling my stomach, I lit a cigarette.

The cigarette had only burned halfway down when I started to feel drowsy.

At that moment, the sable's eyes suddenly became extraordinarily alert. It circled around me once, then sprang up, reached its claws into the collar of my clothes, and fished out my custom-made beast-hide storage pouch.

Just as it was about to open it, a faint defensive array light suddenly flared across the surface, slapping its paw away.

The sable bared its teeth, a wisp of pale purple light suddenly gathering on its claw.

However, it immediately extinguished the purple light.

"What are you looking for?" A low voice sounded just then.

Startled, the sable leaped backward, staring at me vigilantly.

I opened the pouch, took out a fiery red bead, and the bead was precisely the one spat out from its mouth earlier.

With a flash of purple lightning, the sable lunged forward, but with a flick of my hand, the bead vanished.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak..." The sable chattered angrily at me. Even though I didn't understand beast language, I knew it was cursing me nine times out of ten.

"Want it?" I chuckled lightly.

The sable nodded repeatedly.

"No way." I burst out laughing.

The sable rolled its eyes in exasperation, turned its head away, and puffed up in silence.

I laughed heartily. This sable was truly adorable; I knew it had an ulterior motive for following me.

"How about this? You tell me what this bead is used for, and I'll give it back to you. How does that sound?" I played with the fiery red bead in my palm as I spoke.

The sable let out a flurry of "squeaks." It was evident that it placed immense value on this bead. Yet, try as I might, I couldn't see anything particularly precious about it.

"Not talking? Fine, if you don't say, then I'll just consider returning it whenever you finally decide to tell me." I chuckled. By the time this sable learned to speak human words, I'd probably be nothing more than a handful of dust myself.